Friday, February 27, 2015

Book Review: CHRONICLES OF URBAN NOMADS from Readomania

Pic courtesy: www.Goodreads.com

ABOUT THE BOOKChronicles of Urban Nomads is a collection of 19 short stories by 19 authors, edited by Sutapa Basu and published by Readomania. While the first 9 of them have been classified under “Imagine”, the balance 10, go under the head “Musings”. “Imagine” is a batch of stories told from the viewpoint of an object such as a wedding sari; a personal diary; a wedding ring and even from the viewpoint of a nugget of fear. “Musings” are by people from many walks of life – their feelings and expressions.MY PERCEPTIONThe book has been perfectly edited. That goes a long way for me while reading Indian authors. It was a joy flipping page after page, finding all the stories well written in correct English. Congratulations Sutapa Basu! While all the stories are very good, I especially liked some of them. I would like to mention those here.A Vicious Battle by Aravind Sampath touched my heart. It’s a battle between Karthik’s heart and mind told from the viewpoint of the heart. Excellent!The Blue Slippers by Kirthi Jayakumar is another one that almost breaks the reader’s heart. The feelings of a little girl from the viewpoint of a camera! The Masterpiece by Rounak Nayak is a lovely story of Ayan and the love of his life, told from the perspective of a notebook or diary. Superb! A Little Nugget of Fear by Deepti Menon is extremely well written and shakes you up. It’s a story so typical of our country and its superstitions. I simply loved the concept of EFIL by Bhaswar Mukherjee. WMD is a completely believable character and it’s awesome how he becomes a hero in his son’s eyes. The Last Letter by Dipankar Mukherjee is probably the shortest story of the lot. And it’s the most hard hitting. It made me cry. Kudos!Arranged Marriage by Japneet Boyal – it starts off very simply and you wonder how the story found its way into this collection. Then you get to the last page and whoa! You know why. Bachelor and Baby by Jagadish Nadanalli is another cute story that touches your heart. Very well written.Hide and Seek by Niranjan Navalgund is one more story I enjoyed reading. Very quaint and interesting. I like the way Mandira found her calling, a beautiful story of betrayal and forgiveness written by Anupama Jain. Finding Mia by Roopa Raveendran Menon is another one that promises to shake the reader up. It did that to me. I have read Roopa’s romance novella called Pyar Aur Poetry and found it lovely. What struck me even then was her command over the Queen’s language. This short story is also superbly penned. While these 11 stories are close to my heart, I must say that all of them are well written and make for interesting reading. An excellent collection indeed!I have to agree with the subtitle that the stories are unputdownable. Though I read the whole book over a period of three weeks, every time I started with one story, I realised that I could not but finish it. Kudos to Readomania for publishing such a collection from some brilliant authors!

Disclaimer: I received a copy of Chronicles of Urban Nomads from the publisher in return for my honest review.

Click Here to purchase your copy of Chronicles of Urban Nomads by Readomania.